A different kind of summer for students of Class of 2009

Picture above shows (l to r) Aalia al Barwani, Manisha
Deb Roy and Heba Haddad on the eve of their
departure for Ithaca

The summer break for several members of the Class of 2009 looks set to be a busy one, with the focus on gaining research experience at Cornell University's Ithaca campus.

Seven students from the Class of 2009 are spending 8 weeks in Ithaca participating in ongoing research programs in a number of labs. This is the third successive year that selected WCMC-Q students are enjoying the opportunity of working alongside renowned experts at Cornell.

Six of the students have been awarded summer research fellowships by the Medical College in Qatar, while a seventh student made private arrangements to participate.

Heba Haddad, Alia Al Barwani, Manisha Deb Roy and Ali Saad are among the group, and - on the eve of departure early June - they were looking forward to the experience with great enthusiasm and eagerness. While each one is studying in a different area, all of them are sharing common experiences, immersed in the Ithaca environment and living in the graduate dorms on campus.

Experiencing different lifestyles and the international mix of students appeals to Saad, and he is keen to see at first hand the curriculum in Ithaca for the first time. For Al Barwani, the chance to encounter people of different backgrounds and cultures is attractive, while Haddad, who has never visited the U.S., is interested to learn about Cornell research systems and methodologies.

The students are involved in a wide variety of research projects. Haddad, working in Professor Pat Rivlin's lab in the Department of Neurobiology, is participating in a study of screening of the genome responsible in the process of ageing. Identification of the mutant "shaker" gene crucial to the ageing process is one of the goals of the program.

Al Barwani is part of Dr. Jun Liu's team at the Ithaca Genetics Laboratory, studying the gene that determines the asymmetry of the roundworm C. Elegans.

Meanwhile, Deb Roy is being supervised by Dr Robert Gilmour at the Biomedical Sciences School in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Here, the focus is on cellular mechanisms of heart rhythm disorders, especially the measurement of electronic impulses, with computer modelling of the results.

Saad, who is working in the Psychology Laboratory with Dr. Tim DeVoogd, is researching the mating patterns of songbirds and their relation to specific songs in their vocabulary.

Also awarded summer research fellowships are Fouad Otaki, who is joining Dr. Charles Aquadro's lab, and Suehyb Al Khatib, who is working with Dr. Robert Thorne.

Quite apart from the experience of working with research teams in the labs, the students, who have just completed the intensive, two-year Pre-medical Program at WCMC-Q, are set to have another totally new experience: walking around the 260 buildings on a campus covering some 745 acres!